The English Gatehouse

To European travellers before the industrial age, gatehouses were an omnipresent architectural form. Whether at the entrances to cities, residences or religious houses, they signalled to the passer-by the wealth and prestige of the corporation, household or institution that they served. This article addresses the subject of gatehouse architecture in England, a kingdom in which a distinctive tradition of such buildings was ingeniously and enthusiastically developed through the Middle Ages and beyond. It aims to explain why gatehouses commanded such interest for English patrons, and the ways in which these buildings illustrate the changing practice of architecture from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries. For the purposes of the discussion, the term ‘gatehouse' is to be broadly understood. It can refer to any entrance structure that amounts to more than simply an opening in a wall or a decorative archway. One distinctive feature of the gatehouses discussed here is that they all stand in close proximity to the building or institution they serve. In this detail they may be distinguished from the gateways or lodges characteristically erected along the perimeters of parks and estates from around 1700 onwards as points of entry to far-distant residences.